How to give a good powerpoint

March 16, 2006 2:52 PM

How can I make sure my classmates pay attention to my powerpoint presentation and have it stand out to the teacher.

The class is 10-20 11th graders, usually on subjects involving Modern US History.
I want to know how to make the layout, colors, and animation make the content seem more interesting than it really is. Also, I wouldn't mind using sounds or music in the background

posted by joshuak to computers & internet (29 comments total)

Y'know how to do it? Forget about colors, animation, sounds or music. Keep it simple. Four bullets per slide. 50 words per slide. Pick a topic you are interested in, and use the slides to jog your memory and present your talking points.

I'm speaking as a man who has endured hundreds of PowerPoint presentations. Busy slides, clouds, crappy Microsoft clip art. Music, animations, slides that build. They all suck.
posted by fixedgear at 2:59 PM on March 16, 2006

No text. Seriously. Pictures, the size of the screen. No animation. Talk over the pictures. If you need text to jog you along, put it in the notes section and watch your laptop, not the screen. If you have data, show a graph once in a while, but make sure the axes are labeled in a big font. It will stand out. Non-data text on slides: worthless.
posted by neustile at 3:03 PM on March 16, 2006

As a presentation giver and audience member of many years, please don't use sounds, music, or flamboyant animations to try to get folks to pay attention! You want the audience to pay attention to you not the slides, so it's really about working out your presentation

The slides should be clean, high-contrast, have large enough type to be read from afar, and have just enough text on them to convey information without cluttering them. If you have to animate something, make it simple, and just the transitions.

Your presentation is key to getting people to pay attention. Watch your successful teachers and you'll see this is true. To keep people interested, you have to at least pretend to be interested. To sound interested and coherent you should practice the presentation to a mirror, to your friends, whatever at least once, probably two or three times, but not so much you feel canned. If you can give good examples or illustrate your concepts, your audience will think about them more. Do not be afraid to involve the audience by asking them questions, getting suggestions, or, depending on context, making some fun. Can you get them to role-play? Answer hypothetical questions? Etc.

Keeping your classmates interested is almost entirely about your performance, not the slides. I think I said that already. Put your efforts where it'll count and practice your presentation and be excited about your topic.
posted by whatzit at 3:04 PM on March 16, 2006

neustile's also right - some people go for a picture-heavy presentation, and they can be really good when done right. Depending on your topic, all images may not be appropriate, but they can often convey 10x the amount of data that the same space of words could have, and will get your audience thinking about how to interpret what you are presenting to them.
posted by whatzit at 3:05 PM on March 16, 2006

I'll second the idea of using the slides to jog your memory. The slide show is supposed to assist your presentation. Nothing is more annoying than having to watch the back of a presenter's head while he reads information word for word from a slide that anyone halfway literate could read himself. Make your slideshow and then practice talking about the information until you really know it yourself.

Make the slides to the point and clean looking. Avoid garish pictures and sounds. If you want the attention of your classmates, you might go with one small attention grabber or joke slide at the beginning, but make it tasteful and move on to actual substance.
posted by Macduff at 3:06 PM on March 16, 2006

Amen to what fixedgear said above, and more.

Forget PowerPoint as much as you can. You don't want to read people what your have on your slides, you want your slides to be the jumping off point for your remarks. Simple illustrations, a few bullet points per slide, and no more than 15 to 20 slides in any presentation.

Maintain eye contact with your audience, and look at them, not at the PowerPoint. In fact, never look at the presentation yourself. Ask your audience questions, as a means of keeping them engaged. Take a survey of attitudes or ideas, to contrast with some point you are making in your presentation. Summarize and restate your points, and maybe ask your audience to do so with you, as you do, to make sure your key points have gotten through to them.

Don't use music. Don't use clip art. Keep diagrams simple, and slides viewable. Use neutral colors, and not blindingly white backgrounds.
posted by paulsc at 3:08 PM on March 16, 2006

Few words. Active verbs. Three main points.
posted by Ironmouth at 3:15 PM on March 16, 2006

Don't. Keep it simple. No bells, no whistles. Minimal text, if any.
posted by cribcage at 3:23 PM on March 16, 2006

Conference Presentation Judo, while explicitly about presenting at a technical conference, still has a lot of relevant content.
posted by Zed_Lopez at 3:27 PM on March 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

What Neustile said. For the love of god, please don't write all your notes on the slide, and then painstakingly read the exact same #$%*&@ing words out loud to your classmates, most of whom finished reading the words in their heads 5 minutes ago.

*smacks head on desk*
*repeats*
posted by stray at 3:35 PM on March 16, 2006

This is all sound advice. Want to see an example of this in action so you know what to emulate? Go to Apple.com's QuickTime section and see if you can pull down any of Steve Job's MacWorld keynote presentations. All things considered, he does a pretty good job of using "slides" as talking points, and not letting them do the talking for him.

You don't have to wear a black turtleneck if you don't want to, though.
posted by robbie01 at 3:36 PM on March 16, 2006

Definitely use images. I think that's especially true for an audience of 11th graders; they have not yet come to accept the mind-numbing mediocrity that is the average PPT. The presentation is not your notes and is not there to help you. It's there to engage the audience and supply extra data and allow you to emphasize things.

Forget about the PowerPoint templates. The Devil himself created them. Use pictures and maybe a few words (like 5-10 at the most per slide).

Check out Presentation Zen. One article there contrasts Bill Gates's presentation style with Steve Jobs's style. Good for a laugh.

If you have to give presentations regularly, check out this brochure by Edward Tufte.
posted by lackutrol at 3:37 PM on March 16, 2006

PowerPoint is generally a liability to people giving talks, not an asset.

If you want it to be an asset for you, plan your talk this way.

Pretend that on the day of the presentation, the projector or laptop is broken, and you must give your speech without PowerPoint.

Your speech should be substantially unaffected. If there is anything that would be absolutely critical to your speech, and whose absence would hamper your ability to convey information (such as a chart or something) ONLY THEN should it be going into your PowerPoint presentation.

Do NOT read from your slides. If you want slides to help you remember your speech, make notes. Your only slides should be vital to your presentation, presenting a chart, picture, or list of complex data that can only be presented effectively in a visual way.

Most people horribly abuse PowerPoint, to the detriment of their talks. Many talks can be given without any need for something like PowerPoint.

(And if you have access to it, and need slides, KeyNote II for the Mac makes prettier presentations).

An exception is heavily scientific or mathematical talks, where lots of complex information is being conveyed. In that instance, many slides may be helpful and PowerPoint can be a real boon, as visual presentation is the norm for most math, and charts and graphs are plentiful).
posted by teece at 3:37 PM on March 16, 2006

One last thing...

Here's a shorter version of the Tufte brochure.
posted by lackutrol at 3:45 PM on March 16, 2006

Okay, okay, we all know PowerPoint sucks, but what about joshuak's teacher? I mean if he ditched PowerPoint and went with a fiery impassioned speech he might teach the kids more, but might also not get a good grade.

The best thing is to get the best grade, and entertain the students second.

Remember first of all that most of these kids couldn't give a crap about the subject matter, and that some interesting animations and stuff might liven things up. If the teacher is expecting fireworks, give it to 'em, even if that's not really the best idea.
posted by Paris Hilton at 4:06 PM on March 16, 2006

I can guarantee you that the teacher doesn't want to see animations, sound effects, clipart, whatever. They want to see the student demonstrating that they know their material well enough to teach it to other people.

With that in mind, the teacher does not want to see you reading off the slides, he does not want to see you using animations as a crutch to keep people interested, and he does not want to feel like people came out of the presentation with nothing more than they went into it with.

What the teacher wants to see is that you know the stuff--so know the stuff! Practice your presentation until you know everything you're going to be presenting by heart. This is the kind of thing which, before PowerPoint, was done with no (or very, very, very, very few) visual aids. It's your job as the speaker to impart all the information, not the slides. If you leave any work at all up to the slides, you might as well just stand silently and click the button every two minutes.
posted by billybunny at 4:19 PM on March 16, 2006

I've given over 100 powerpoint presentations, many to students. Here is what I suggest:

1. As few words per slide as possible. Never over 15.
2. Use pictures. It's hard to use too many. One per slide unless you have a really good reason. Every time you mention someone's name put a picture of them up.
3. DO NOT USE ANY ANIMATIONS other than 'appear'. Animations are fun for the author and annoying and distracting for the audience.
4. DO NOT USE MUSIC unless it is essential to your point.
5. Make it very clear from the beginning how many main points you have (4 max). Every time you transition to the next point, explicitly say, "Now, let's move on to the next major idea: ___" Signposting is essential.

The most important idea: if your content is interesting, the presentation will be good. You can't make the presentation more interesting by dressing up boring content with pretty pictures and animation.
posted by underwater at 4:28 PM on March 16, 2006

Firstly I agree - Keep it simple. But, given that, I know that some people in that age group (and indeed some teachers of that age group) equate simple with lazy. So, here's my tips:

Font is either exactly the same all the way through (eg Arial 44pt Blue for headings, 32pt for body text) or is exactly different (Arial, Times, Comic Sans) but the same size and colour.

Animation and sounds must be relevant. In Redgum's song "I was only nineteen" which is about an Australian soldier's point of view in the Vietnam war, there's a line that goes "and a barking M16?" which is followed up by a change in the drumming. This is the sort of sound you should consider using. Sounds related to your image or your topic. Avoid like the plague the bells, and cheers etc.

For animation, I believe that showing the movement of troops (I can't find the example I want - intro to Dads Army), or a timeline punctuated by simple images would be effective. But like sounds, not just for it's own sake.

Keep your images as big as you can make them - whole screen is good and then if you're putting text on top, fade the image so that it's still there, but the text is readable. Under no circumstances animate the text. About the only thing you'd want to do is have your dots points go up one by one as you speak about them.

Good luck. I'd like to see what you come up with.
posted by b33j at 4:37 PM on March 16, 2006

Sorry about the broken link. You'll just have to imagine the song.
posted by b33j at 4:38 PM on March 16, 2006

don't go crazy with the stupid powerpoint effects, that just makes it look lame instead of interesting

text is okay, but pictures are better. A friend of mine had her senior bio professor make a strict rule that they weren't allowed more than 25 words on a slide. As someone who recently had to sit through 3 days of power point presentations in another class, I can say that 25 words or less was defintily a plus. People don't understand that powerpoint should be used to highlight their points instead of making all of them.

If you are going to do text, make sure it is interesting, even witty. I know I'd pay more attention if the speaker was throwing in jokes or interesting trivia bits.
posted by nuclear_soup at 4:39 PM on March 16, 2006

I think everyone's covered most of the do's and don'ts (don't's?) of Powerpoint usage, so let me throw out an advanced technique: if the computer you'll be using for the presentation has a fairly recent version of Acrobat Reader, and you've got page layout software like InDesign or Quark, then dump Powerpoint altogether and just make your presentation a PDF. You can then display it fullscreen in Acrobat Reader and use the spacebar/click through to advance slides, just like Powerpoint. No worries about missing fonts or pictures, it looks 200 times better than any Powerpoint presentation, it's cross-platform so you can run pretty much any computer, and you can post the slides for future use without worrying about whether people have Powerpoint.

If you're at all inclined towards decent design, you'll never go back to Powerpoint.
posted by chrominance at 4:41 PM on March 16, 2006

This thread is a gem, the reason I love MeFi.

Just one more thing...

If appropriate, humor is an essential ingredient, but like most spices, it should be used to enhance the flavors/ideas already present, and always sparingly. If you make people laugh every now and then, keeping them engaged is much easier and the positive feedback will make you a more enthusiastic presenter.
posted by dbiedny at 4:56 PM on March 16, 2006

i did most of those things so i guess i was successful. The only things i would have changed would be spread my pictures out, they were all at the end, and include a few blank slides.
in fact i might ask my teacher if i could give a presentation on making a good powerpoint
thanks. this site kicks ass.
posted by joshuak at 6:23 PM on March 16, 2006

Have you read this?

Gates's presentations are exactly what you don't want to do -- although the answer you've marked as best makes it sound like this is not what you want to hear.

Job's presentations are *exactly* what you want to emulate. You'll be using PP in a way that's understated and cool, but while still with enough graphics and font styles to make the teacher realise that you're not slacking; your presentation isn't sparse because you can't work PP, or couldn't be bothered.

Every background must be black for this to work. Have blank pages when you just want to focus on you talking. Use one clear headshot when you're discussing a particular person. Put his lifedates beside it.

Use music -- short bits! -- if you must, but use it like an exclamation mark. One, at most two in the piece is fine. More makes you look insane!!!!! It should be utterly relevant to the topic at hand. So if you're talking about 1920s Harlem, get some early Jazz going, just as you start talking about the speakeasies. Keep it quiet, so you can still be heard.

To make the presentation look minimal but also classy is going to take more work than loading it up with every mental effect, but it's going to leave a much better impression. Think about the sort of boxes very expensive small items come in: they're generally minimalist and plain. Yet you never think they weren't designed within an inch of their lives.

You should leave the same impression. Have your teacher think you're upper-class, not a logo'd-up Best Buy special.
posted by bonaldi at 6:43 PM on March 16, 2006

I can guarantee you that the teacher doesn't want to see animations, sound effects, clipart, whatever. They want to see the student demonstrating that they know their material well enough to teach it to other people.

Unless the teacher is a moron. You're probably to old to remember giving PowerPoint presentations in highschool. I'm not. The teachers were all gee-gaw over the technology and were not passing out Tufte tracts to the students.

In my US history class we had an "internet section" where we had to look at X number of websites and crap and had one whole class period devoted to telling us how to surf the web...

Granted that was almost a decade ago (*shudder*) but high school teachers are not Information theorists.
posted by Paris Hilton at 6:57 PM on March 16, 2006

Just don't make the same mistake Abe Lincoln did.
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 7:26 PM on March 16, 2006

When you have assembled your Powerpoint presentation, assuming that it includes some text, select "print." In the window that pops up, under "Print what," select "handouts." Under "slides per page," select three.

The slides will print out three to a page with space for notes next to each slide. Copy the handout (either in color or b&w) so that you have one for every person in the class.

This way, everyone can spend more time paying attention to you and less time taking notes. Your classmates will like that you've saved them the trouble, as will your teacher, and you'll look super-professional.
posted by equipoise at 7:57 PM on March 16, 2006

The simple rule, which I've developed over too many years of sitting through other people's crap presentations, is this:

A Powerpoint is not a presentation. YOU are the presentation. Powerpoint slides exist only to illustrate points.

Simple example. You may have to speak for 45 seconds to explain how something progresses from coloured circle A to outlined square B. But your powerpoint should just have an arrow.

A more relevant example, using music and images: Imagine doing a presentation on an overview of the Vietnam war. Start with pre-war imagery and accompanying music. As you progress through the start / offensive / stalemate / exit stages of the war, use suitable imagery and contempory music - e.g. boys proudly going off to fight, inspirational battle scenes, trudging through jungle mud, the embassy extraction. You can imagine the sort of thing.

Use the background sound to pace your presentation. Let the imagery speak for itself - you should be explaining what's on screen, not describing it. To keep to the pace, leave all Q&A's to the end - then you can go back to a relevant slide and answer the Q's with a description / explanation of what's on-screen.

99% of a presentation is preparation. Preparation is hard work. Using Powerpoint in itself is not preparation.
posted by Pinback at 2:55 AM on March 17, 2006

This may be a well-known approach but I've never seen it done well before: a cow orker recently gave a twenty-minute talk that was backed up by (around) sixty slides. Each slide had one word on it.

At the beginning of the presentation, the single word represented the theme of what he was currently talking about, and the slides were changed as he moved from point to point.

As the presentation continued and people got used to the content of the slides, he changed it up a bit: the word on the current slide would sometimes refer to the subtext of what he was currently talking about, or it would make a joke about what he was talking about - but he'd never mention it explicitly, leaving it to the audience to make the connection. Several slides were repeated as he reiterated points or returned to a previous theme.

I think this sort of thing fits into advanced use of slides when giving a presentation and might not be suitable unless you're extremely comfortable with your material. But I will say this much: people paid attention to the presentation, partly because the slides were easy to digest but also because it was fun to determine how the keyword applied to what he was saying. It was a novel approach for that particular audience, but it's a technique that would likely get tiresome after a while.
posted by flipper at 7:23 AM on March 17, 2006